Pray with Sri Lanka on March 19, 2023
Lectionary Selection: John 9: 1-41
Prayers from Sri Lanka
Gracious and loving Father,
It is a great privilege to entrust our needy and vulnerable people into thy hands and to share their joys and desires. I thank you for giving us this opportunity to pray for our mission and ministries in this broken world. At this time, we remember and give thanks to you, O Lord, for the great missionary pioneers from the American Board of Commission for Foreign Mission (ABCFM) who brought your Gospel to this part of Sri Lanka in the early 19th Century. We are grateful for their sacrifice, commitment, and dedication to witness to your call to discipleship by establishing educational institutions, healthcare facilities, and other organizations to share the love of God.
Our heavenly Father, at this time of prayer, we would like to bring the oppressed and marginalized people working in the most difficult conditions, like the factories, mining industries, tea plantations, and rough seas of this nation for your mercies. Due to the prevailing social, political, and economic situations, our citizens, especially those marginalized people, face tremendous hardships and tribulations in carrying out their daily lives. Grant them your wisdom and power to overcome all the hurdles in their lives and experience your presence.
Almighty Lord, I commit these deserving communities into your mighty presence. Bless them and fill them with your Holy Spirit so that they will make a difference in their lives and those around them. Grant them your knowledge so they can be faithful witnesses of your vineyard.
We ask all these in your precious name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen
Mission Moment from Sri Lanka
Today, there is an urgent need for the Sri Lankan church to be an active, wholesome, and transformative body of Jesus Christ. The church needs to reconstruct its practices and theological praxis so that it is fully rooted in Sri Lankan soil and able to address the different communities in Sri Lanka and be connected with their daily lives. In this scenario, the partnership with Global Ministries and its ministerial network has highly empowered the Church of the American Ceylon Mission (CACM) to be a participative, productive, and prophetic church in Sri Lanka. The global connection, especially with Global Ministries, helps the CACM to think globally and act locally. We, the CACM, always focus on three means to express God’s love: Evangelism, Ecumenism, and Mission.
Evangelism is an inviting force of God’s love in word and deed. We, the Church of the American Ceylon Mission, always open our doors to all communities (crossing all barriers of class, caste, religious and ethnic identity) and to individual persons to enjoy the presence of the Almighty in our fellowship, worship, and healing ministry.
Ecumenism is an accepting force of God’s love from other Christian denominations and faith traditions. Here we continually enhance our relationship with existing Christian denominations and evangelical groups and extend our fellowship and dialogue with other religious communities in Sri Lanka.
Mission is a liberating force of God’s love to ensure the freedom of all humanity and new life to all creation. We aim to develop appropriate avenues and structures to bring peace and harmony among believers and lay leaders in the broader communities.
In the last few years, we have worked with Global Ministries on many issues like human trafficking, freedom of religion and belief, interfaith initiatives, gender justice, exclusion and harassment faced by diverse groups of people, including sexual minorities, and environmental protection. Also, we have been blessed by the opportunity to work for and achieve several significant successes, including peace-building between the Tamils and Muslims in the aftermath of the bomb blast on Easter, in Batticaloa, in the Eastern Province, in 2019, and youth empowerment and ensuring the end of human trafficking in Udappusellawa, in the hill country where most communities work with tea estates and related occupations.
In all of this work that God has strengthened us to be involved in, we, the CACM, highly value our partnership with Global Ministries and give thanks to God for this relationship.
Written by Rev. T. Thevanesan, Chairperson, Church of the American Ceylon Mission (CACM)
Partners in Sri Lanka
- National Christian Council of Sri Lanka
- Ecumenical Institute for Study and Dialogue (EISD)
- Church of the American Ceylon Mission
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